July: Beauty With a Side of Ouch

Here it is, the last day of July, 2016. How was your month? Let me catch you up on how mine went down.

First, I lost my crown. Figuratively, of course. While trying to gnaw off a small bite from a Zero bar, my four-year-old dental crown popped off. Fortunately, I caught it. Then I painstakingly cleaned it and saved it in a plastic bag, which went right into my purse. Dental work I’d been avoiding suddenly seemed unavoidable, so I called to make the dreaded appointment. “Do you still have the crown?” the receptionist asked. “Of course. Of course I do. I have it here somewhere,” I said, fumbling around in my purse for that damned plastic bag. Unfortunately, it wasn’t to be found. I truly had lost my crown, literally. Even more unfortunately, insurance will not cover it as it came out after “only” four years. Had it come out after seven, the cost to replace it would’ve been Zero. As it is, my cost to replace: $775.00.

Holy crap, that was an expensive bite of Zero bar!

Then, Moose had his toe amputated. When asked what happened, the most succinct answer I can give is, “old age.” He’s at the age when dogs get prone to mysterious growths and are somewhat susceptible to infection. In his case, he had an infected growth in this toenail. Fortunately, it didn’t appear to have spread to his bone. Unfortunately, it was not responding to antibiotics. The safest course of action, then, was to remove his toe before the nastiness could spread.

Someone stole Moose’s toe!

Moose is recovering nicely.

The good news is that he recovered quickly and seems fairly unaffected by the fact that someone stole his toe. Dogs are cool like that.

And, our neighbors did this. I call this the New Face of “Conservative” Logging, where instead of selectively harvesting trees that can be used, loggers just mow down entire swaths of forest.

The forest before the loggers came.

The forest after the loggers left, Day One.

I’m not sure what is scarier – the fact that, when asked, the logger didn’t know the regulations for cutting trees near a waterway…or if there are plans for this same logger to “selectively” cut trees on my family’s land next.

July hasn’t been totally painful! We had wonderful family from the coast visit early in the month, and I finally got a camera I had been saving up for. I’ve also been planning our August vacation to Canada and am super-pleased to be doing that sooner than the weekend before we leave, as is normally the case.

So, life throws us ouchies, but it also gives us some beautiful things as well. Balance. That’s what it’s all about. Good riddance to July, and welcome August!